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La-di-da-di…Learning to Potty

So, a few months ago, my mom bought L a training potty. And it sings when the kid goes to the potty successfully. I am not terribly excited at the prospect of another noisy gadget for these, already ridiculously loud kids. But it was a nice gesture. And it meant that I didn’t have to buy one.

The thing literally sat at my mom’s house, never touched, until about two weeks ago. And then I put it in my car and left it there until three days ago. I don’t want to potty train. I think we all know how smoothly sleep training has gone. (Read: How much I have threatened to kill myself over the past two years due to bedtime/naptime battling.) I feel that this is going to be a disaster. I have been dreading it since I MADE this baby. And as fond as I am of the idea of only having to change ONE person’d diapers, I am even more terrified of trying to make this happen.

So, I put the training potty in the hallway next to the bathroom because I couldn’t think of anywhere to put it, seeing as my living room is in a constant state of TOTAL DISARRAY, and I expected to ignore it for as long as possible. And then today, L woke up in a great mood after her nap (a rarity these days as she is battling an ear infection/separation anxiety and a nasty case of the Terrible Twos) and walked with me out into the hallway, asking for juice. I walked to the kitchen to realize that she wasn’t behind me. When I retraced my steps to find out where I had lost her (read: what she could be quietly destroying while I was distracted by her request), I found her sitting, fully-clothed on her potty. She was smiling as big as she could and making a “sssssssss” sound. (Seriously? Not so subtle.) So, I asked her if she wanted to “go pee-pee on her potty” and she said, “PEEEEEEEE-PEEEEEEEEE! YES!”

I took her shorts and diaper off and she sat back down. She did not “pee-pee on her potty”, but she did continue to make a “ssssssss” sound. I can only assume that this was a simulation of peeing. And that’s fine. And I seriously hope that this means she is ready and that this is an indication that this will not be the terrible process that I have envisioned in my head for the past 23 months.

I know that this is a big step! I know that it is exciting and everything! But holy shitballs, I don’t wanna, you guys!

Do you mommies (or daddies) have any tips for a reluctant potty trainer?

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7 thoughts on “La-di-da-di…Learning to Potty”

I’m a Mama who thinks she can pretty much “teach” her kids to be polite, sit quietly in restaurants, stay in their beds until morning and sleep through the night. And I’ve been (marginally) successful. But potty-training? They have their own schedule. I carry a potty in my car at all times, still. In fact, I carry it out to playgrounds where the parking lot is a distant walk away. I can tell you though, peer pressure helps. Which is gross, but true. My younger ones just watch the older ones and do it. The older ones, especially the boys? They sort of have their own schedule as far as I can tell. Good luck! (Adorable post, as always!)

Another reluctant trainer here. Alex has been indicating she’s ready for about 2 months (she just turned 2). She even goes pee pee on the potty after pulling her own pants down (and i remove her diaper) after telling me she has to go sometimes. I’m not ready for full on training though and hope I’m not messing her up by having her hold off. Diapers are SOoooo easy! Not looking forward to dealing with rushing to the bathroom wherever we are!

We iniatially taught them that after a meal and before going out one always goes on the potty, there was loads of fun entertainment to be played with that wasn’t elsewhere (toys, books) and there has been times where the “one-on-one quality time with mum” came on the potty (but mostly not, I had two potties next to each other so as soon as the younger one could (almost) sit, I put him on the other one. He wanted to have his nappy off by 1,5 but does still at 2, 5 now have a nappy on nights and car drives) and mostly focused on positive feedback as long as one went nicely on the potty (it didn’t matter if pee came or not). It’s a bit of a hassle to be consequent with two small ones but not having to change two is worth it!!! (For me the older one was 2 when we started and the real intensive training took 2 weeks so she was ready)

Stella has only recently potty-trained (still in diapers at night). And like everyone says: they’ll do it when they’re damn good and ready. She gave me the classic readiness signs for a bloody year and no results. Of course it could have been starting then stopping the re-starting schools, her own special brand of angst we’ve been dealing with, or the arrival of a baby brother which caused a delay. Regardless, I sent her to my mother-in-law’s for an overnight trip and she came home potty trained. Seriously. Only 1 accident in like 4-5 weeks now. Incredible.

My daughter R will be 3 next week and we had our first success on the potty about a month ago. Since then we’ve worked down to about three diaper changes a day instead of five. I know all the advice and I’m sure it works wonders for some parents but at the end of the day I just despise potty training. I don’t love changing diapers but developing false hope that she’ll use the toilet and listening to my 11 month old scream for ten minutes while I help her, only to end up changing dirty pants half an hour later is driving me bonkers! Thanks for the post, good to know I’m not alone!

Potty training requires diaper free time. I left her unattended for 2 minutes after watching her diligently for 3 hours and in that time my then 21 monther pooped on the carpet and as i whisked her away to the bath I heard the dog eating it off the carpet. It is a horrible memory. I can only pray others learn from my mistake.